Soviet authorities are planning to bulldoze one of the few remaining synagogues in the Soviet Union and build a public square in its place, the Simon Wiesenthal Center was recently informed.
In a letter sent to members of Congress last month, the Center reported that the Ashkenazic Synagogue in Tbilisi, the capital of the Georgian Republic, was slated for demolition. Closing the building, the letter noted, would have “obvious tragic impact” on the Tbilisi Jewish community of some 20,000.
The report of the planned demolition came from Isai and Grigory Goldstein, two brothers from Tbilisi who were recently granted exit visas after seeking to emigrate to Israel for 15 years, according to Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, who sent the letter to Congress.
The Goldsteins are to arrive in Vienna on April 15, and it is expected they will have news on the status of the synagogue, Cooper told the JTA. He said he assumed that since no news has been heard to the contrary, the building is still standing.
The Tbilisi synagogue is one of two synagogues in the Georgian capital and one of only 55 in the Soviet Union for a Jewish population of some 3 million. According to Cooper, the synagogues in Tbilisi are unusually well attended and have attracted many younger Jews who have developed an intense interest in their religion.
ONE OF A SERIES OF NEGATIVE SIGNALS
The planned demolition is one of a series of negative signals for Soviet Jewry that have recently taken place in Tbilisi, Cooper observed. He noted that it fits the Soviet pattern of trying to “dash hopes internally” whenever there is talk outside about impending liberalization.
In this instance, the move would come after the release of the celebrated Jewish dissident Anatoly Shcharansky in a prisoner exchange and the recent permission to emigrate granted the Goldsteins and some other veteran refuseniks.
Since the Goldsteins were told they would be permitted to leave, two Jews have been arrested in Tbilisi — one a 22-year-old resident of the city who was charged with draft evasion, Bezalel Shalolashvili, and the other a visitor from Moscow, Alexei Magarik, who was taken in on trumped-up drug possession charges, Cooper said.
The demolition of the synagogue, Cooper stressed, would come at “a very, very harrowing time for the community there right now.”
Responding to a request from the Wiesenthal Center, Sen. Carl Levin (D. Mich.) circulated a petition that was forwarded to the President of the Council of Religious Affairs in Moscow with the signatures of 14 of his colleagues. Other Senators have sent letters of their own urging that the plans be reversed.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
